Can Self-Employed Tutors for My Company Also Volunteer within my Company?

BueTAnderbeest

Hi

This is my first post. How are you all? Hopefully, someone can help me.

I want to start a for-profit tutoring business hiring self-employed tutors. I want my company to help a wide range of students, including disadvantaged students who cannot afford tuition. 
Would it be against the law to state in my job description that we want to reach a large number of students and that tutors will have the opportunity to help disadvantaged students by offering them up to a 100% discount (essentially volunteering) for any number of lessons that the tutor decides?

Thank you so much, guys!

Emmia

I think putting the "volunteering" in the advert makes it look like a requirement/ expectation of the job (people can't decline) and so you're likely to put potential tutors off.

kimwp

Not sure legalities of putting it in a job advert, but how are you going to decide who gets free tutoring?  Are pupils going to be aware that the tutors might provide their services for free and for however many tutorials that the tutor decides on so might ask them directly? In my experience, structure and limits are required around this kind of thing. Will you be providing the digital platform, safeguarding checks etc?

The ability to work for nothing seems a bit irrelevant to an applicant really, particularly given there are many charities that provide tutoring for the disadvantaged. 

BueTAnderbeest

Emmia said:

I think putting the "volunteering" in the advert makes it look like a requirement/ expectation of the job (people can't decline) and so you're likely to put potential tutors off.

Thanks for your reply... no, I wouldn't put it in the ad, that was just for you guys.

BueTAnderbeest

kimwp said:

Not sure legalities of putting it in a job advert, but how are you going to decide who gets free tutoring?  Are pupils going to be aware that the tutors might provide their services for free and for however many tutorials that the tutor decides on so might ask them directly? In my experience, structure and limits are required around this kind of thing. Will you be providing the digital platform, safeguarding checks etc?

The ability to work for nothing seems a bit irrelevant to an applicant really, particularly given there are many charities that provide tutoring for the disadvantaged. 

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I will be providing the platform and will require a DBS. Your other questions are things to think about.

True, there are charities that offer this, hmmm, I just wanted to offer the same, so that anyone in the country
(perhaps where these charities do not work) would have the opportunity to learn.
Maybe I won't do it after all. It's probably too complicated...

Thanks

kimwp

BueTAnderbeest said:

kimwp said:

Not sure legalities of putting it in a job advert, but how are you going to decide who gets free tutoring?  Are pupils going to be aware that the tutors might provide their services for free and for however many tutorials that the tutor decides on so might ask them directly? In my experience, structure and limits are required around this kind of thing. Will you be providing the digital platform, safeguarding checks etc?

The ability to work for nothing seems a bit irrelevant to an applicant really, particularly given there are many charities that provide tutoring for the disadvantaged. 

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I will be providing the platform and will require a DBS. Your other questions are things to think about.

True, there are charities that offer this, hmmm, I just wanted to offer the same, so that anyone in the country
(perhaps where these charities do not work) would have the opportunity to learn.
Maybe I won't do it after all. It's probably too complicated...

Thanks

Sorry, I didn't mean to put you off- it's a great ambition. Maybe get your business up and running and then develop the charitable element, which would require a greater mental and financial overhead. 

MyRealNameToo

BueTAnderbeest said:

Hi

This is my first post. How are you all? Hopefully, someone can help me.

I want to start a for-profit tutoring business hiring self-employed tutors. I want my company to help a wide range of students, including disadvantaged students who cannot afford tuition. 
Would it be against the law to state in my job description that we want to reach a large number of students and that tutors will have the opportunity to help disadvantaged students by offering them up to a 100% discount (essentially volunteering) for any number of lessons that the tutor decides?

Thank you so much, guys!

It's unclear how you expect this to operate both for customers and for your subcontractors... who gets to decide who gets it for free and who has to pay? Is it the business absorbing the cost of tuition for the freebies or are you expecting the tutors to work for free? 

Presumably you will take on self employed tutors and not limit yourself to those that operate via a company?

Your risk is going to be that you are deemed to be their employer or that they are a worker for you irrespective of what your contracts state. As such they'd have to be paid minimum wage, that doesnt mean every hour has to be paid but when you average out the total pay over the total amount of hours done it has to be above minimum wage. So if you are paying them £30/hr and under 50% of the time is pro-bono then thats ok from an employment law perspective. Clearly if you are paying them £15/hr with a 50:50 paid and free then you're running a risk. 

In my mind there are a host of reasons why you should be paying the tutors for all work and paying for the free work from your margin on the paid work. 

Marcon

BueTAnderbeest said:

Hi

This is my first post. How are you all? Hopefully, someone can help me.

I want to start a for-profit tutoring business hiring self-employed tutors. I want my company to help a wide range of students, including disadvantaged students who cannot afford tuition. 
Would it be against the law to state in my job description that we want to reach a large number of students and that tutors will have the opportunity to help disadvantaged students by offering them up to a 100% discount (essentially volunteering) for any number of lessons that the tutor decides?

Thank you so much, guys!

If you start trying to mix a for-profit business with a not-for-profit enterprise, you'll get yourself in a real pickle.

The idea of helping disadvantaged students is great - but your post suggests that you want to make money from the business, but let your tutors give up their fees to further your charitable objectives.

There are already plenty of ways for tutors to be put in touch with students who need help but can't afford their fees. If you'd done a bit of googling, you'd have spotted that - eg https://actiontutoring.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/ Stick to trying to set up an agency which provides excellent quality tuition - and then, as suggested above, use part of your profits to further your charitable aims.

Your post suggests you may have very little commercial experience, so make sure you do your homework thoroughly before launching into your shiny new project. It's a lot easier to get things right from the outset, rather than having to put them right at a later date. Masses of useful info at https://www.gov.uk/browse/business If you're in the 16-30 age bracket, start by having a look at https://www.kingstrust.org.uk/ 

Grumpy_chap

I was confused by the intent of this thread at first, but I think I came to understand it overnight and popped on to say, I think, pretty much the same as MyRealNameToo has beaten me to saying.

If the business wishes to offer tutoring services on a paid for basis and to include a certain amount of tutoring on a pro-bono basis for customers without the means to pay full fees, then that seems to be something for the business to control.
That allows the business to control the basis that eligibility for free tutoring is available and also the quantity of free tutoring provided.  It also means that the details of the students is held confidentially.

The business should employ tutors - whether staff or sub-contract or self-employed - and pay those tutors the same rate regardless of the charge out rate to the student.
The normal charge out rate to fee paying customers needs to be sufficiently high to cover the base costs of the tutors, premises, all admin and overheads, plus the level of free / subsidised tutoring that is to be provided.

There could be real issues with GDPR / data protection if individual tutors have knowledge of which students are on subsidised fees and which are on full fees.  It may also affect (even subconsciously) the commitment level of the tutors to different students.

Further queries that I pose:
How will the availability of free / subsidised tutoring be communicated and managed?
Will this be used as a marketing tool for the business (to demonstrate corporate social responsibility)? 
If the availability of free / subsidised tutoring is published, how will you prevent potentially fee-paying students from claiming the free / subsidised hours? 
If the availability of free / subsidised hours is not published, how will those eligible know to ask rather than just dismissing the training on the basis of cost?
What basis will you use to determine eligibility for free / subsidised tutoring?  How will that data be held securely?

Andy_L

Why would the tutors want to do this? If they wanted to help disadvantaged students they could already be offering discounts

Andy_L

The other question is are the self-employed tutors truly self-employed (for either tax or employment rights) or are they actually employees?

What would be the role of your company? an employment agency? and why would they work for you rather than providing tutoring directly to students and cutting you out of the picture?